


remember the sunlight

by orlesiantitans



Series: Damerey Daily 2020 [6]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, F/M, Ghost Sex, Ghost!Poe Dameron, Ghosts, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:49:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22178086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orlesiantitans/pseuds/orlesiantitans
Summary: When she first sees him, she’s certain he’s a figment of her imagination.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Rey
Series: Damerey Daily 2020 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1588942
Comments: 2
Kudos: 53
Collections: Damerey Daily 2020





	remember the sunlight

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Apology For Bad Dreams by Robinson Jeffers.
> 
> Remember when I promised a return to my regularly scheduled angst...?

When she first sees him, she’s certain he’s a figment of her imagination.

Rey’s standing, sipping at her coffee, very aware of the fact she’ll have to go to work (regardless of whether or not she wants to) when a man in military uniform seems to flicker into view before disappearing again. She screams, dumps half of her coffee down her front, and stares at the now-empty space in her kitchen like she’s seen a ghost (which, in retrospect, she _had_ _)._ But there’s nothing there – and as things tend to do in such situations, her brain started to come up with the logical solution. It’s early in the morning, it must have been a trick of the light, a trick of her own mind. So she pushes it out of her mind, and goes to work.

The second time she sees him, she can’t deny he’s there, staring at her, eyes just as wide as hers.

He’s handsome. That this is her first thought is, perhaps, odd – but he is. He watches her carefully, tilts his head to the side, and folds his arms over his chest.

“Can you see me?” is the first thing out of his mouth. The way he stands – defensive, put together, brown eyes focused unflinchingly on her and jaw set in a line – suggests he’s a soldier as much as the uniform he wears, worn but well-kept.

“Yes,” she says, after a moment. “And you, clearly, can see me.”

He starts to pace, “By God. Nobody’s been able to see me yet. It’s been a hundred years, thereabouts, and I’ve had no-one to speak to. It’s been driving me near mad.”

The thing is, whenever Rey had been told about ‘ghosts’ as a child, they were always pale, screeching, see-through things. They’d open their mouths in a scream, often bloody and half blown-apart. This man, on the other hand, looks just as she’d expect a person to look. Aside from the fact he _appeared in her front room_ without _any_ provocation at all. She’s too old to believe in ghosts – but how can she not, when she’s presented with the evidence.

“What’s your name?” she eventually settles on, cutting him off mid-tirade, and he stops. Looks her over. Sighs.

“Captain Poe Dameron, ma’am. I’m a pilot,” he says, and she pulls out her phone. “Seriously, are you texting _now_? I tell you I’ve been stuck in limbo for a hundred years – something I’m sore about, by the way, I always _behaved_ in life – and you start texting? People these days, they honestly-”

She holds out her phone. It has a picture of him on the screen – curly hair, serious expression, a hat that made some of the hair stick out the sides. “This is you. A hundred years ago.”

“Yeah. Back when I was still living and breathing,” he says. “Died in the war. I was a pilot, back then, when piloting was still a fairly new thing. Crashed and… well. Here I am.”

She frowns, “Does this mean I’m a clairvoyant now?”

“I don’t know,” he laughs, scratching the back of his head. “This hasn’t happened before. Perhaps God has a plan for us I’m just not aware of yet.”

Ah, yes. Early twentieth century – probably God-fearing. Nothing she couldn’t handle – at least she hadn’t shoved a bible under her nose. Then again, there was still time.

A lot of time, as it turned out, because after he appeared, Poe Dameron just _didn’t go away_. He took to following her everywhere, commenting on everything. It was a little annoying, honestly, _he_ is a little annoying at times, but…

But Poe Dameron is a good man, she realizes one evening, when she’s downstairs in her pajamas and he’s sitting at her kitchen table listening to the old songs she’d put on her Spotify for him – it makes him nostalgic, and sometimes he talks about all the girls he’d take out dancing, talk about how his father loved these songs and would sing them even though radios didn’t exist back then.

“Didn’t really get them in until the 1920s, and even then papa wouldn’t have been able to afford them. Immigrants, you see. You look even vaguely Mexican, speak even a little Spanish, don’t expect to go eating food with the white folks,” he sighs. “I’m not even from Mexico. I’m from _Guatemala_.”

Rey sighs, “I’m going to guess they didn’t really care about that. People are dicks.”

Letting out a laugh, Poe’s eyebrows raised, “Much as I don’t approve of your bad language, I’d have to agree. People _are_ dicks.”

He hesitates a moment before he stands up, and he holds his hand out to her. “Want me to show you how to dance, properly?”

She puts her hand in his. He does feel solid, but there’s still an otherworldly feel to him. When she’s pulled close to his chest, his heartbeat doesn’t pound against hers. He’s cold, and it should be uncomfortable, but Rey feels warm.

They dance slowly at first, but when faster dances start up Poe plays along, even as he protests that swing came _after_ he died. He seems to have a decent grasp on it regardless, and he laughs and spins her a few times, only stopping when she stumbles and almost falls on him. He catches her, but they’re even closer than they were before, and somehow Rey finds herself with lips on hers.

This is something she’s done before too – but again, it’s something that is _different_ with Poe. His lips aren’t wet like another man’s would be, or warm, she can’t feel his pulse in his mouth. But Poe Dameron knows how to kiss – and before she knows it, they’re going towards her bedroom, clothes shed en-route.

She didn’t know ghosts could get naked. She didn’t know that ghosts could get hard, either, but it becomes evident, once they’re in her room, that they most certainly can.

“Have you-” she asks, when his hand drifts between her legs. He shakes his head.

“Not everything,” he murmurs, head dropping to her shoulder. “Rey, this is… I shouldn’t. We shouldn’t. This can only end in heartbreak and disaster. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Rey tilts his head up to meet his eyes, shaking her head. “I don’t care. I just know that I need you, Poe Dameron. And I know that I care for you.”

That seems to break him. His fingers manipulate her, and he eventually moves inside of her. They kiss as he fucks her, solid and real in her in a way that’s not _human_ , but also isn’t something Rey would change for the world. It should be funny, or strange, that she’s having sex with a ghost. However, she doesn’t feel strange. She feels…

“This is so good,” she whispers. He takes her hands, twines their fingers so that they’re next to her head. Tears stream down her face, and his twists in concern until she smiles at him.

She’s in love. In love with a man who she can’t introduce to her friends, a man she can’t have a family with, can’t marry.

He kisses her again, and when she comes it’s almost silent. He groans into her mouth just after, and his hips stutter. He pulls out, goes to lie next to her.

“It’s – that was – God help me,” he murmurs.

“I suppose, since you died a virgin, that means I can take your virginity over and over,” she says, a little nervous, turning on her side. His smile is gentle, and tender, and pained.

Always that pain.

“I shouldn’t have. Not really. I can’t love you how you deserve,” he tells her. “That was my regret, you know. When I died. That I’d never loved a woman how my father loved my mother. That I never...”

He touches the ring around his neck, and takes it off, placing it on her finger. Rey stares at it, and feels it warm with her body temperature. It shouldn’t, not with how Poe doesn’t, but impossibly it _does_.

“I love you,” he whispers, pulling her hand to his lips. “And even if I can’t take you before God as my wife, I’ll take you here. I’ll do everything I can, and even then it won’t be enough.”

“You’re enough,” she whispers in return. “I love you too.”

The next morning, Rey wakes alone. Her companion is gone, even if his ring stays around her finger, and she sobs into a pillow for hours. She feels like she’s broken, like she’s died as well, and she looks for any trace of him, anywhere. But all she has is his ring until – two months later – a doctor’s visit confirms something else.

It should be impossible. But it seems Poe Dameron left more than his ring with Rey, and as she grows over the months, as his child grows within her – and it can only be his, there’s never been another. She gets bigger, gets rounder, and when her child comes into the world – kicking and screaming bloody murder – she looks at his face (Ethan Poe Dameron) and sees impossible features. The curls, the mouth, his father and her own features on this tiny person. Finn and Rose come by, coo over him, even though her friend still expresses concern over the fact she’s doing it alone. They don’t ask about the father, though. They learned that lesson when Rey burst into tears just at the thought of him.

Finally, her life has something other than her child’s lost father to occupy her, and she feels… content. Happy. She bounces her son in her arms early in the new year, and startles when she hears something. She turns, and standing in her front room is Poe Dameron. She stares at him. His eyes are wide, and he sees the child and steps forwards, hand reaching for him. His hand brushes hers, first, and he feels warm. Warmer than he ever did.

“Rey,” he says, softly. “Is this – did we-”

“Yes,” she nods. “Poe, how...”

“I don’t know. There was… light, like they say, but I asked to come back. Begged. For a long time,” he replies, looking back at her. “I guess they granted my wish. Or perhaps they just decided to let my son have his father.”

She swallows hard. She wants to cry. He’s back. He’s back – and she has him for good, this time.

“Ethan,” she chokes out. “His name is Ethan.”

She’s enveloped in warm arms, and his heartbeat thunders under her ear. He whispers to their boy, in English, in Spanish, calls her ‘querida’ and rains kisses down on her hairline.

“I thought I’d lost you,” she says, when her sobs are just hiccups.

“No, querida,” he replies. “Don’t you know me, by now? I’m stubborn. I’d never let that happen.”


End file.
